12FORREST
After I get the group back to the lodge and we nearly eat the plates beneath our dinner, everyone’s saying good night and slumping off to their beds when Margot turns to me and says, “Well?”
It’s the first word she’s spoken to me in hours, and I’m not sure what she’s asking. Does she mean:Well? Did you really think you’d be able to focus on anything else now that you’ve had your tongue in my mouth and your hands all over my perfect body?Because after a completely sleepless night with her pressed against me, that’s certainly the only question running laps inmymind. But then she follows up with: “My letter?” and I remember the entire point of forcing her to go extreme-weather camping in the first place.
“Right. Sorry,” I apologize for the dozenth time today. “It’s in my pack. I’ll go grab it.”
On my walk to the entryway, I glance at Ollie, who’s only half-listening to Topher and just waiting for me to leave Margot unattended. He winks at me as I pass by, and it takes monumental effort to keep my face from revealing how badly I’d like to put him back on a plane to the lower forty-eighttonight. I don’t know what he said to her this morning, but when they cameback from their little sunrise chat, she wouldn’t even make eye contact with me.
Which, fine. Margot and I agreed we’d try to forget about what happened in the tent. But the thing is, I’m competitive. Some of my colleagues (or all of them) might say it’s a defining characteristic. They might say it’s why I’m practically jogging to retrieve her letter and get back before Ollie has a chance to invite himself over to her cabin.
After I’ve dug it out of my pack and returned to the dining area, it’s no surprise to see him sidling up to Margot at the edge of the fireplace. Topher’s standing directly in my path, presumably on wingman orders to keep me at bay. As I approach, he puts his hands on his hips, spreading his poncho like the world’s crunchiest superhero.
“Hey, Forrest,” he says, immediately confirming my suspicions. “You ever see a double rainbow out here? Once, at Burning Man—”
“Nope. ’Night, Topher,” I say, bypassing him and locking my sights on Margot and Ollie.
As usual, he’s making her smile, and a distant part of my mind tells me I should let them be. It knows I should hand her Savannah’s letter and excuse myself. Let Ollie comfort her in the aftermath of whatever she’s going to read, because the sooner she bunks up with him, the sooner she’ll be unavailable, and the sooner I can go back to focusing on what really matters: my dad and the lodge. Unfortunately, that calm, rational part of my mind isn’t steering this ship right now.
“Sorry for the wait,” I say when I reach her and hold out the slightly crumpled letter.
“Thanks, Forrest.” She takes it from me and, like a reflex, holds it to her heart. My own thuds in response, like it could care less about all the boundaries we agreed to, but she doesn’t look at me. Instead, she looks athim, and I resign myself to being satisfiedthat, at the very least, I’ve been entrusted to give her something so precious. That I have the privilege of knowing how much it means to her.
“It’s a letter from my sister,” she explains to Ollie. “But I think I’ll read it in my cabin. It’s getting late.”
“Do you want me to walk you there?” I ask.
“No,” Margot says quickly, glancing up at me. To my alarm, there isn’t just awkwardness in her eyes—there’s fear too. She looks quickly at Ollie, and my stomach sinks. “You and Topher are headed my way, right?”
Shit. I try catching her eyes again, but she won’t look at me.
“Totally. We’re happy to swing by your place,” he says, sliding a lanky arm around her shoulders. “Lead the way.”
Margot’s eyes flicker to mine again, and there’s that look once more. My own sense of panic flares. Why is she scared of me? Did I fucking scare her in the tent? She and Ollie begin walking away.
“Have a good night,” I say hoarsely, unable to remember ever feeling so helpless.
“Thanks, man,” Ollie says, giving me one last sly smile. “We will.”
I catch the faint smell of gardenias, and I can’t help turning and watching her go, pulled close to another man’s side. They collect Topher, who’s sitting cross-legged on the floor, probably still contemplating double rainbows, and leave with a quiet click of the front door. Sticking both hands in my hair, I let out a long, hopeless exhale. I am so fucked.
How the hell did I let this happen? Logic, discipline, and sacrifice are the three pillars I’ve built my entire life and career on, and all it took was one night with Margot Bradley to knock them down like dandelions, all my best intentions floating away like seeds on the wind. The truth is, I don’t want her to be with Ollie. I don’t want him to lay another fucking finger on her, and my gut says she doesn’t want him to either. But she’s letting him walk her to her cabin, and I can’t understa—
My body goes completely still as I realize the fear in her eyes tonight was the same I felt when all her muscles tensed beneath mine in the tent.Why?Half-formed, circular questions I’ve been asking since she got here begin swarming, but in a startling moment of clarity, my mind leaps over them like a stone skipping on water. It touches briefly on the perfect Happily Ever Afters she writes. Glides to her sudden pursuit of writing murder mysteries. Jumps to her decision to follow Ollie and, finally, lands and sinks into Savannah’s words about herhurting deeply for a very long time.
A glimmer of a theory forms. A fleeting chance to taste my drug of choice: understanding. It’s why my feet are carrying me toward the computer, even though I know I shouldn’t look. Up until now, I’ve resisted the urge to Google her or reactivate the social media accounts I abandoned after the Charlotte debacle. It’s bad enough that I’ve read Margot’s entire collected works. But now, with every piece of information I’ve collected about her fitting together, nothing can stop me from finding out whether I’m right.
The old PC boots up with the speed of a glacier, and I drum my fingers next to the mouse. Finally, I pull up a browser and am on the cusp of typing her name when the most important question I always ask before beginning any research hits me:Is the pursuit of this knowledge ethical?
My fingers curl off the keyboard and into my palms. On the one hand, the information I’m seeking might well be within the public domain. On the other, Margot might not want me to know about it. She’s never actually come out and told me the real reason she’s staying at North Star Lodge. Then again, my intent isn’t malicious. I simply want to know Margot better and avoid inadvertently scaring her again.
My fingers tentatively rest on the keyboard once more. Whatever I find out will die with me. I type her name, and after one last second of hesitation, I hit the return button.
When the page finally loads, my eyes widen. One flinch-inducing headline after another goes off like grenades in my mind as I take in the scope of coverage about Margot.New Yorkmagazine,The Washington Post, theLos Angeles Times… she’s in them all. Suddenly, Charlotte’s bad review about North Star Lodge seems like a push on the playground compared to what Margot could potentially inflict. And yet I kissed her. Kissed her and forgot the existence of my one all-important rule: Don’t get involved with guests.Fuck. I pull a hand over my face as adrenaline floods my exhausted body like I’ve been defibrillated. I don’t want to believe Margot would intentionally hurt the lodge just to get back at me, but then again, I didn’t think Charlotte would either.
I need to stop this. Get up from this desk and stop thinking about Margot, period. But then one headline catches my attention above the cacophony of all the others:Margot Bradley Canceled After Shocking “Happily Never After” File Leaks.
Without thinking, I click on it. At the top of the page, there’s a Zoom-meeting screenshot of Margot’s beautiful face crumpled with distress. My collar seems to shrink around my neck while something hot and ugly knots in the center of my chest. I flick down past the image to not so much read the article as absorb it. Quotes from Margot’s leaked file are interspersed between paragraphs in bold font. When I reach the bottom of the page, there’s a link to the full document, and I don’t think; I just click.
